No-one likes general adverts, and ours hadn't been updated for ages, so we're having a clear-out and a change round to make the new ones useful to you. These new adverts bring in a small amount to help pay for the board and keep it free for you to use, so please do use them whenever you can, Let our links help you find great books on glass or a new piece for your collection. Thank you for supporting the Board.

Author
Topic: Small Crystal Milleflori Paperweight (Read 2763 times)

Hi all, Once again, many thanks for your attribution. I had a gut feeling that the signature marking did not seem right even though I have never owned or heard of St Mandes paperweight. Three of us sat around looking at this paperweight after the replies and reference from the initial post and I suppose convinced ourselves that the markings we identified, might be the signatures. I will most certainly be looking into using the reference information you all have provided and als looking at the existing collection of paperweights that I have aquired of a good few years. You never know, I might find another one of these amongs my collection. I'll be so lucky! Anyway, thanks for your help.

With reference to the above and under section 19th Century', paragraph 6.

Taking into consideration that the main leading manufacturers of paperweights are Baccarat, St Louis and Clitchy. My question is, St Mande and Pante made paperweights of the same style and quality during the 'classic period' 1840-1860. How am I or anyone else with limited knowledge, able to identify which is a St Mande paperweight, to the three leading manufactures of paperweights I have mentioned, especially taking into account if the design and contents of the paperweights is very similar. In other words, what do we need to look for? I would of said that clitchy and St Mande are very similar in style and would of thought it would be very difficult for someone like myself to be precisly accurate on identifying the manufacturer. Comments appreciated.

Logged

Support the Glass Message Board by finding glass through glass-seek.com

I find St Mandé and Grenelle weights very similar, and look forward to the PCA article that Alpha has mentioned. But that is perhaps not too surprising, as a key person is common to the two factories – a man called Charles Bredgen. Charles’ father - Thomas - was born in Stourbridge, and was a glass maker at the French factory at Choisy-Le-Roi. His son Charles worked at St Mandé, then founded the Grenelle factory. I believe he worked in Finland for a number of years before returning to France to work at Clichy. There is an article about him by Philippe Frère in the 2003 PCA Bulletin.

I don’t find the weights very like Clichy, but that may be from years of trying to spot the differences. Here are some of the features I note for St Mandé and Grenelle: the glass is often a grey blue, and of poorer quality than Clichy. The profile of the weights – especially the miniatures – shows the sides curving under to a small base, and there is often a distinct groove towards the base where the pick-up and casing glass were joined. Often the concentric designs in the miniatures are off centre. I also find the canes less complex than Clichy.

I have added images of the top and base of a medium St Mandé concentric, a small St Mandé concentric, and a Clichy closepack to help illustrate some differences.

Hi Alan, To be honest, I have not heard of Grenelle until mentioned previously by Alpha. I have tried to research this type of paperweight, but seem to be limited on information readily available or unless I am looking in the wrong direction. I did, however, find some threads on the GMB site, were you have actively contributed to the post(ref. below). They appear to be a lot of controversy over the identity of paperweights in question of this period, hence the main reasons for the availability/access to the PCA Bulletin, that is published each year. I have viewed your pics. and acknowledge and understand the difficulty in identifying without specialist contribution . I have looked at my paperweight again closely in order to identify it, based upon the info. you have provided. My paperweight is crystal clear and cannot see any signs of blue/greyish colour tint when held in natural ight. The pictures taken, may not do justice on this matter, however, the canes are definitely off-centred and the base is curved around the edges with a ground like groove around the edge of the outer base line. This is the only part that meets a flat table surface. I have also noticed, which I did not pick up on before, is that the canes are on a gradient to the horizontal base line of the paperweight.

A good starter for identifying St Mandé weights, especially by cane analsys is Identifying Antique Paperweights, The Less Familiar by Georg N. Kulles ISBN 0-933756-43-7.

The PCA Bulletin articles then add extra information.

Personally I find the separation of St Mandé and Grenelle weights quite difficult - although they are, as Alan says, noticeably different from Clichy weights.

It should also be noted that I never got around to sorting out the text for several weights illustrated in the PCC website pages for the 1999 Exhibition, under the section for "Antique Bohemian", which was what most of the St Mandé & Grenelle weights were thought to be in those days.

Hi all, Yes! I too would agree that there is no comparison to the Clitchy Paperweights. What I found of great interest though, is that Alan had mentioned that Charles Bredger worked @ St Mande prior to the Grenelle Factory, which was founded in the latta period. (Please correct me if I have got that wrong). With this certainly in mind and soley based upon the info. gathered so far. Would it be fare to say that my paperweight maybe an earlier piece by St mande, when you look at the irregularity and displacement/allignment within the canes. The reason for my prognosis on this arguable matter, is that St Mande was only in business for a short period of time and within that time they only made approximately just over two hundred paperweights. Using limited tools and resources, were probably not able to effect or should I say produce the same style and quality as the three main leading manufactures of paperweights, which are Baccarat, St Louis and Clitchy. This is were I am now confused, as this is conflicting to what is stated in the article ref. info: http://en.wikicollecting.org/paperweights, were it clearly states that St Mande produced many examples which were equal. My question is, would you agree with that statement?

Not only do I value all your attributions to the post, but will certainly be looking into purchasing the book by Georg N Kulles. I was not aware that two other books are written by him. Ref: http://www.paperweights.com/bk_kulles3.htm. It looks like I will have to put the gas and electric bill on hold for this month.

Logged

Support the Glass Message Board by finding glass through glass-seek.com

I think you should always treat short internet articles on general 'collecting' websites with suspicion - most of the ones I have seen that concern paperweights are very poor, and full of inaccuracies - some of them are so wrong it is laughable.

The short article you mention in wikicollecting has less errors than most, but I do not agree that Pantin made a lot of paperweights - they made very few as far as we know, and there is little or no evidence of millefiori examples. And I do not agree that St Mandé are usually comparable in quality to the 3 main factories. I do not know who wrote the article, but I doubt that they know a lot about antique paperweights.

I do not recall seeing a statement anywhere that St Mandé only made a couple of hundred paperweights, and I am sure it is wrong. If that were true they would be very rare - and I have owned 20 or more over the last few years, and seen many more. I think St Mandé made many thousands.